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Get the Look: Parisian Love Letter Paper Blooms Tutorial

Paper flowers are a hot topic in the wedding world right now! We’ve been seeing them all over, and we bet that you’re just as enthralled with them as we are! From their beautiful shapes to the statement they make, we can’t get enough of the handmade touch that paper blooms bring to a wedding. And, while a lot of tutorials showed women cutting out flower shapes and petals for what must have been hours, we wanted to offer a more time friendly version of the craft so even the time strapped (or novice DIY) bride could create the look with confidence! Hence our Parisian Love Letter Paper Blooms were born!!! And today, we’re showing you just how to make stunning bouquets and a boutonniere with these handy little blooms for that extra special handmade touch on your wedding day. So get your crafty pants on, it’s time to become a wedding DIY diva!

To make either one of the above bouquets, there are a few items you need to have on hand:

1. Parisian Love Letter Paper Blooms: Offered in black or vintage gold, we used a mix to create our designs. For a mixed bouquet 2 – 3 sets of the paper flowers will cover depending on how many real flowers you would like mixed in while an entirely paper bouquet requires 4 sets for a full look on a 3 inch Styrofoam ball.

2. Styrofoam Ball: Any size you desire, although a 3-4 inch one makes a nice sized bouquet and is what we used! Available at most arts and crafts stores.

3. A Styrofoam Cone: Once again you can decide the size, but a 6-7 inch one gives lots of space to hold it by and once again is pictured above! Available at most arts and crafts stores.

4. Hot Glue Gun / Wooden Skewers / ect…: To affix the cone and ball together. We liked wooden skewers as they nicely secure the two parts together (plus a shot of hot glue never hurts!).

5. Diamond Pins: These are gorgeous and make sticking all the flowers together and into your bouquet a breeze!

6. Pearl Brads: Once again, these brads make a great statement and make putting the flowers together very simple.

7. Lace / Ribbon / ect…: As a finishing touch to your creation, cover the cone of the bouquet with lace, ribbon, jewels, whatever you like! We did an underlay of small wrapped black ribbon with lace and large black ribbon over top. The whole thing is held in place again with the stunning diamond pins which polishes the look and ensures our wrapping doesn’t come off! Once again, hot glue can be used on the underlayer of wrapping, but use glue dots or similar products for clear adhesives on the outer layers!

{ Using the sides of a pencil or other circular household item, gently bend the petals of every flower around it to create lifelike blooms. }

Step 3

{ With all your petals folded, stack each flower to your preference – they can be 3 tiers, 4 tiers or even more depending on what look you like best! Experiment and make lots of different sized flowers to perfectly fit every nook and cranny on your bouquet! }

Step 4

{ Secure each set of your stacked blooms with a Diamond Pin or Pearl Brad to prepare them for application. For the pin and the brad alike, we found that poking a guiding hole with a sharp sewing pin or needle made easy work of getting the diamond pins or brads through! }

Step 5

{ Make Your Bouquet! Simply start in one area and poke all your flowers in to your hearts content! Work outwards from a single spot to make a full yet flowing bouquet that will be a treasure to cherish always! It’s the same steps for both paper and real flowers, just make sure you don’t make your mixed flower bouquet too much ahead of your wedding! We suggest a trial run before your big day – then you can be sure you’re ready to DIY when your wedding approaches! }

Our Weddingstar designers are hard at work, here Andrea is crafting the paper bouquet while Tara pops the rest of the petals from the paper!

Step 6

Wrap your cone or adorn it however you see fit and then, voila! Here are your finished bouquets!

To make matching boutonnieres, we simply used any left over blooms from our bouquet building! With our left over flowers, we took them to the florist to work a little magic with floral tape, leaves and a some professional know-how! Because, as much as we love DIY-ing, unless you’ve got some serious florist skills, we suggest letting an expert take over. You’ve still done your part with the handmade blooms, but this way you can be rest-assured your boutonnieres will look amazing on your wedding day… And hey, no one has to know you didn’t make them too 😉

For more great inspiration for your wedding & more ideas on how to use these gorgeous paper blooms, check out our newest lookbook – Parisian: Black and White! It’s chock full of fantastic ideas on how to utilize our entire line of Parisian Love Letter Stationery and make a stunning wedding design that flows! See you all Friday, until then happy crafting and weddings everyone!